ZUL’S SPACE

Nicol David, the world’s number 1 squash player has done it again. She adds another accolade after clinching the Player of the Year in the World Squash Award ceremony in London. This is her 3rd successive award after winning the same award for the last 2 years. Another number 1 squash player (men’s division), Amr Shabana, who is from Egypt, took the men’s award.

Nicol had his best year in 2007 after winning 8 major titles throughout the season. She also holds the record of longest winning streak by winning 51 consecutive matches before surprisingly faltered in the early round of World Open games in Madrid. At only 24, the world is at her feet and such feat is remarkable for someone who is at her age.

Congratulations Nicol. We Malaysians are so proud of you! And for sure, Penangites will be the happiest bunch around.

When your freelance business is growing, it will probably be inevitable that some day you have to find that ‘extra hands’ to help you out with your work. This is especially true when you are chasing the deadlines.

Some of you might say that you should not do that as the work needs to come from your own self.

How wrong. Off course you can outsource some of your work provided you establish strict quality guidelines for the work produced by that someone else. Also, you can do so as long as you understand that you will take full responsibility for the end result. You cannot simply say to your client,

“I know you are not quite happy with the translation part, but that is not my work. I actually asked somebody else to do it as I was running out of time.”

You say that, and you can forget about repeat orders.

Also, in the process of outsourcing some of your work, you need to know exactly how well the person can do your work. Often, freelance work and freelance outsourcing involve a great deal of trust. If no trust is formed than you should never ask someone to do the job for you.

Where do you find the extra help?

First, find someone who you have known for a long time. It is even better if that someone is from your local area i.e. a person that you can meet up easily. If that someone is from the cyberspace, track the person’s performance track record. For example, many freelance websites provide rating for the freelancers’ past performance, comments and testimonials. Choose those who possess proven record.

Another piece of advice is that, only outsource those work which is not your strongest point while you focus your time doing the work within your core expertise. For example, if your main skill is English writing but the job requires you making some research, then you can outsource the research work and focus your job on the write-up.

It seems that certain people are wasting their annual budget by giving away stashes of cash to students graduating with top honours. Recently the Negeri Sembilan government decided to give away RM25,000 for those graduates who scored first class honours in their degrees.

Off course, that is a generous rewards but in my own opinion, those people don’t reserve rewards in the form of too much cash. It will be good for the state government to help those students paying off their study loans/or convert the study loans to scholarship. They can also help those graduates by placing them in government agencies or in the private sector without having to spend too much time writing applications so that the graduates can better prepare for the real world that requires much much more than academic credentials.

This advice comes from someone who spend many years in the recruitment involving fresh graduates and often found himself disappointed with the quality of the first class graduates. Often, those average achievers with active involvement in extra curricular activities get the job and impress the employers instead of those first class degree holders.

They should remember that first class honors is just a scroll and it does not guarantee them success in the working world and life in general. There’s more to it than achieving top academic degrees.

They will eventually realize that giving away money to them will bring more disadvantages rather than advantages. Unless, those people use the money to run his/her business rather than entering the job market hoping for a high salary at par with the academic achievements. That obviously will not happen for as long as the quality of the education is still questionable.

Let’s not put the citizens money to waste. I hope they will realize their mistake soon.